A German surrender mission headed by Admiral von Friedeburg,
Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, signed articles of unconditional
surrender for the German land, sea, and air forces facing the Canadian First
Army and the British 2nd Army at 6:25 o'clock this evening. Field Marshal
Montgomery signed on behalf of the Allied Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The signing occurred in a tent set up especially for the ceremony in front
of Marshal Montgomery's headquarters on the Lüneburg Heath just south of
Hamburg. It is significant that the northern German armies were surrendered on
this barren, artificially-forested heath, which for years has served as the
training ground and birthplace for German armies. It was here that technically
a large part of the Wehrmacht died.

For this northern European front, it means that the fighting for the
Canadian and British armies here is virtually finished. The only European
nation in northern Europe to be liberated is Norway. There still is the Dunkerque pocket, but these events must have a tremendous effect on the Germans still
holding out there.

In the words of Field Marshal Montgomery as he walked to the tent where the
official signing took place, grinning and commenting to the reporters:

"This is the moment! It was a great moment, a historic moment, there in the
cold rain, the blustering winds on the Lüneburg Heath, in the heart of
northern Germany; a great moment not only for Britain and Canada but for the
American 82nd Airborne Division, the American Eighth Infantry Division, and the
American Seventh Armored Division, fighting under the Second Army in its hour
of victory."

It was also a great moment for America and Russia and France and the world.

Here is the background of the historic signing of the biggest mass surrender
of German forces since the Armistice of 1918. The stage was set for the big
surrender in the north when the British Sixth Airborne Division, operating
under the American 18th Airborne Corps., drove northward to the Cleve-Elbe
River bridgehead south of Hamburg to reach the Baltic Sea at the city of
Wismar. This happened Wednesday night.

Then the British paratroopers linked up with the Russians. Coming up on the
right flank, the American Eighth Infantry Division and the American 82nd
Airborne Division made linkups to the south of Wismar on Thursday, the next
day, with the Russian Army.

What happened was that this drive to the Baltic carried the Second Army
thrust directly behind the line of retreat of the Germany Army Group, the Nazi
armies retreating before the drive in the north by General Rokossovsky's forces advancing westward.

In the first three days it is estimated that more than half a million
prisoners were taken, mostly from this army group retreating westward. That
explains the large number of staff officers who fell into British hands during
these fateful days. We were capturing the generals before encountering their
fighting troops.

The rout had set in for the German armies on the northern front. On
Wednesday, May 2, a German general who said he commanded the so-called Army
Group, hoisted a white flag and sent an emissary to the headquarters of the
British Second Army. He said he commanded all the forces between the Baltic and
the Weser River, the river running southward from Bremen. He said he wanted to
surrender this army group.

General Dempsey, Commander of the Second Army, replied that
he should start moving, and a rendezvous was arranged for Thursday. The German
general did not appear, but he sent word that negotiations were going on a much
higher level than his military station. He could not negotiate.

It was yesterday that a party of four higher German officials again hoisted
a white flag and drove into the British lines. The head of the party was
Admiral von Friedeburg, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy who replaced
Admiral Dönitz while the latter assumed the title of Führer. Von Friedeburg's
rank also carries the title of General of the Army, and thus he was able to
negotiate for the ground forces as well.

With von Friedeburg was General Kinzel, the next ranking officer, who is
chief of staff to Field Marshal Busch, who is commander of the
northern German armies. Field Marshal Busch, incidentally, is still missing
from our prisoners' list, but we should catch up with him soon. And next came
Rear-Admiral Wagner, a staff officer to von Friedeburg and lastly — a Major
Friede, a staff officer to General Kinzel.

This was the party who hoped to negotiate with Field Marshal Montgomery.
They were taken to "Monty's" field headquarters on the Lüneburg Heath. He
stepped out, returned their military — not Nazi — salute, and asked, as if they
were vacuum cleaner salesman, "What do you want?"

The Germans replied:

"We come from Field Marshal Busch to ask you to accept the surrender of
three German armies which now are withdrawing in front of the Russians in the
Mecklenberg area." These armies, it was later revealed, were the Third Panzer
Army, the German 12th Army, and the 21st Army.

"ANXIOUS ABOUT CIVILIANS"

The Nazi officers continued: "We are very anxious about the condition of
German civilians who are fleeing as the German armies retreat in the path of
the Russian advance. We want you to accept the surrender of these three
armies."

To his everlasting credit, Field Marshal Montgomery turned down three German
armies willing to surrender to him. "No," he said. "Certainly not. Those German
armies are fighting the Russians. Therefore if they surrender to anyone, it
must be to the forces of the Soviet Union. They have nothing to do with me. I
have nothing to do with the happenings on my eastern front. You go surrender to
the Soviet commander. The subject is closed."

Then Field Marshal Montgomery asked: "Are you prepared to surrender the
German forces on my northern and western flanks? Those forces between Lübeck
and Holland and the forces in support of them, such as those in Denmark?"

The Germans said no, but they added that again they were anxious about the
conditions of the German civilians on the northern flank. "We would like to
come to some agreement with you by which the civilians would be saved from
battle slaughter," they said.

Then the German commander proposed a complicated and difficult military
program covering the next few weeks, in which the British Second Army would
advance slowly while at the same time the German troops, by agreement, would
retreat slowly. It would work well for the Germans.

Again Monty said: "No, I will not discuss what I propose to do in the
future — nothing."

MAP SHOCKS ENEMY

Then the British Field Marshal took the offensive. "I wonder," he said, "whether you know the battle situation on the Western Front." And he produced
his operational map; the war was too close to being won for it to have any
security importance. This map, and what he said, was the final straw; the one
factor which precipitated the surrender of one million Germans. The German
commanders were shocked, astounded by the progress of the Allies in the East
and the West.

It was lunchtime and they went off to lunch alone. Admiral von Friedeburg
burst into tears when he got out of sight of Montgomery, and he wept throughout
lunch. After lunch, Field Marshal Montgomery called the Germans back for
further consultation, and there he delivered his ultimatum — an ultimatum that
must have hurt the Nazis as much as the landing in Normandy.

He told the Germans:

"You must understand three things: Firstly,
you must surrender to me unconditionally all the German forces in Holland,
Friesen and the Frisian Islands and Helgoland and all other islands in
Schleswig-Holstein and in Denmark.

"Secondly, when you have done
that, I am prepared to discuss with you the implications of your surrender; how
we will dispose of those surrendered troops, how we will occupy the surrendered
territory, and so forth.

"And my third point: If you do not
agree to Point I, the surrender, then I will go on with the war and I will be
delighted to do so."

Monty added, as an after-thought, "All your soldiers and civilians may be
killed."

One, two, three, finished. This shook them. They said that they came
entirely to ask for the acceptance of three armies who wanted to surrender.
They said they had no authority to agree to Monty's demand. But they agreed
that two of them would remain behind while the others presented the new terms
of surrender to their superior.

So at 4 PM yesterday afternoon, Admiral von Friedeburg and Major Friede went back with the news. They returned today at about five o'clock in the
afternoon with the complete acceptance of the unconditional surrender terms — and
that's how surrenders are made.

And this is what it looked like, the signing of a great surrender of the
German forces in the north to British and Canadian armies. It was raining when
we arrived at Monty's headquarters, set in the shrubbed pines and firs at the
Lüneburg Heath. The weather was more like fall than spring, with the winds of
the North Sea whipping a cold drizzle over the whole landscape.

But overhead, whether or not, the Spitfires and Typhoons roared over,
heading always northward, where Germans were reported trying to escape to
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The air forces were continuing the attack until
the last minutes of surrender, a sign of Allied strength built up in Germany.

We were led to a tent, a weather-beaten tent that had been pitched scores of
times at the Field Marshal's headquarters. It wasn't large; about ten feet wide
and twenty feet long. Family size. Inside was set up an ordinary kitchen-size
table. On top of it was a blue cloth. Between two microphones was an inkstand
with an ordinary steel-tipped pen lying on top.

The German mission arrived and walked to the front of Monty's caravan.
Admiral von Friedeburg was invited inside for a last-minute conference. At this
time it was not completely settled whether the German answer to the
unconditional terms would be yes or no.

An extra person had arrived with the Admiral's party, a Colonel Paulik, once
a member of the staff of Field Marshal Keitel; Keitel is
second in command of the German armed forces only to Fuehrer Doenitz. The party
had plenty of weight, but did not officially bear Keitel's authority.

And while Monty and the Admiral were meeting in the caravan, the other Nazi
bigwigs stood in the rain, cold and shivering, just like us reporters. Then
they marched down the gravel path toward the tent.

There was Admiral von Friedeburg dressed in a gray leather-coat, German Navy
style, with a battered hat on his head. But the striking thing was his face…the
punched-in German face, deeply lined and absolutely gray and motionless.

His was the responsibility in the surrender mission, and he showed the
strain of his duty. Frankly the Admiral, who wept so copiously at lunch the day
before, today looked as if he had been crying ever since.

But the most magnificent figure was General Kinzel, the chief of staff for the
German armies in the north. He was the perfect figure of what the world has
come to know its sorrow as the German military peacock, complete with monocle.

General Kinzel wore a light green, fastidious German Army greatcoat, with
brilliant red lapels. His monocle seemed to glisten even in the dull gray of
the afternoon. If his face had not been set in concrete, you might have
expected him to burst into song for a Viennese operetta. He was that beautiful.
The small fry, the Colonels and Majors and all the rest of the surrender party,
were gray ducks by comparison.

Again Field Marshal Montgomery kept the party waiting. They stood at
attention around the kitchen table. Finally, the Marshal wearing immaculate
British field battledress with red tabs on the lapels and a field marshal's
baton on his shoulders, almost sauntered down the path. He came to this
reporter and said out of the corner of his mouth:

"This is the moment."

He carried the surrender papers in his right hand. The moment he appeared
the Germans snapped in attention, like puppets. The British Field Marshal sat
down and stretched out his hand in invitation for the Nazis to do the same.

The cameras began to whirl and click, and Monty picked up the historic
document that meant the surrender of more than a million Germans. He put up his
horn-rimmed spectacles, picked up the papers and said, "I will now read the
terms of the surrender."

The Germans sat like statues, not a flicker of emotion on their faces.
Solemnly, but with a note of triumph in his voice, Monty read the terms of
surrender. You could tell he had been waiting in Alamein, in Tunis, and in
Italy.

Then, one by one, the Germans signed. Admiral von Friedeberg, General Kinzel, Rear Admiral Wagner, staff officer to von Friedeberg; General Paulik and Major Freiberger. They didn't say a word or betray a single emotion; it was strictly Prussian ceremony for the Germans.

Then the Field Marshal took up the wooden pen with the steel tip. "And now," he said, "I will sign on behalf of the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower."

The ceremony took about five minutes.

Downs won the National Headliner's Club Award in 1945 for this report. Edward R. Murrow repeated some of Downs' account in a broadcast on May 4, 1945:

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Admiral von Friedeburg committed suicide nineteen days later. Below is video of the signing and the terms of surrender.

Instrument of surrender signed at Luneburg, Germany, May 4, 1945

Entered into force May 4, 1945; operative May 5, 1945

The Axis in Defeat, Department of State publication 2423 (U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1945), p. 22

1. The German Command agrees to the surrender of
all German armed forces in Holland, in northwest Germany including the Frisian
Islands and Heligoland and all other islands, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in
Denmark, to the C.-in-C. 21 Army Group. This to include all naval ships in
these areas. These forces to lay down their arms and to surrender
unconditionally.

2. All hostilities on land, on sea, or in the air
by German forces in the above areas to cease at 0800 hours. British Double
Summer Time on Saturday 5 May 1945.

3. The German command to carry out at once, and
without argument or comment, all further orders that will be issued by the
Allied Powers on any subject.

4. Disobedience of orders, or failure to comply
with them, will be regarded as a breach of these surrender terms and will be
dealt with by the Allied Powers in accordance with the accepted laws and usages
of war.

5. This instrument of surrender is independent of,
without prejudice to, and will be superseded by any general instrument of
surrender imposed by or on behalf of the Allied Powers and applicable to
Germany and the German armed forces as a whole.

6. This instrument of surrender is written in
English and in German. The English version is the authentic text.

7. The decision of the Allied Powers will be final
if any doubt or dispute arises as to the meaning or interpretation of the
surrender terms.